


A House Is Not a Home

by allmylovesatonce



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4481111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allmylovesatonce/pseuds/allmylovesatonce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their house is them. It was Mindy's bold choices and Danny's attention to details. It was Mindy's bright personality mixed with Danny's reserved personality that somehow evened them both out.</p>
<p>Set after the Season 3 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A House Is Not a Home

She was on a timeline and she knew it. Mindy had until Danny got back from India to make up her mind about them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a very long time. In fact, Danny was due back in New York in a matter of hours. She still couldn’t make heads or tails of their situation.

They’d both screwed up. She’d argue hers was a minor indiscretion. Sure, she should have told her parents about Danny and actually let them know the full extent of their relationship. But if she had a gun to her head right now, she wasn’t sure she’d really be able to explain it anymore.

She loved Danny. No one could deny that. But as it was, it had been days since she’d seen him and the last conversation they’d had in person was when he told her he didn’t want to marry her. It hurt. Distance wasn’t helping much with the pain. It only made her feel more alone and more overwhelmed. Was she really going to be a pregnant, unwed mother? She’d always just assumed they’d get married at some point.

The minutes ticked by and his arrival time got closer. Mindy had debated whether or not she should pick him up at the airport. Ultimately she had decided not to. She thought if she picked him up, she’d feel the need to put on a front. And if she put on a front, he might think everything was fine. And things were far from fine.

She still didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t always be the one to cave. She couldn’t always be the person to let her dreams die so that other people could achieve theirs. If Danny was so opposed to marriage, why couldn’t he just tell her instead of stringing her along? Was she really just supposed to be his live in girlfriend who bore his children for the rest of her life? She just didn’t understand.

What she did understand was that they had a timeline. They needed to have their relationship and their whole situation figured out by the time their son came. If they were going to stay together, they needed to figure that out before they brought a baby into this world. If they were going to just co-parent and be friends who raised a baby, then they needed to work out the terms of that before he was here.

Honestly, she didn’t really like the idea of raising a baby by herself and trading him back and forth with Danny. But if he was going to constantly doubt them and their relationship, she needed to do what was best for her son. She couldn’t be Annette and have Danny freak out and leave them, no matter how much she swore he wasn’t like his father.

As her timeline dwindled, she came to a conclusion. She just didn’t know what to do yet. But she knew she couldn’t make the decision there. She pulled herself up off the couch and went for her suitcase. She was in her own little world, planning and packing accordingly. She was so swept up in her task that she missed the sound of the locks clicking or the door opening. She missed the sound of footsteps approaching the bedroom. The first sound she heard was a bag hitting the ground. She was startled and looked up to see Danny’s impossibly crushed face.

She looked from him back to the suitcase, the sight of his horror. She couldn’t look at him directly. She didn’t know how to explain to him that was wasn’t officially leaving. She just needed space to make up her mind. But when she finally looked him in the eye, she saw what he saw: one more person leaving him.

She tried to ignore the pain on his face. She was doing this for a reason. She was trying to protect her child and her sanity. She couldn’t keep playing games. If Danny couldn’t commit to her, she couldn’t do this. It wasn’t just about her now.

Still though, she wasn’t a monster. She could tell how much pain he was in. He hadn’t moved yet from where he stood in the doorway. He hadn’t spoken. He just kept staring at her and at her half packed suitcase. It was as if he thought if he stood there long enough, he would wake up and realize it was just a dream. Like maybe if he stood there long enough, he would realize it wasn’t real and that he hadn’t screwed up the best thing in his life.

Mindy finally found the courage to speak. “Look, Danny,” she started.

He shook his head quickly. “No. It’s…uh…” He shook his head again and said, “I’ll just, uh, give you some…space.” He picked up his bag and walked out of the room. She heard the door click closed behind him.  

**

Mindy had waited for him to come back all night. Apparently when he wanted her to have space, he really meant it. When she woke up the next morning, she got ready for work, the same as usual. She was almost worried about where he ended up. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility for Danny to have gotten blindly drunk and was passed out somewhere he shouldn’t be.

She shouldn’t have worried though. As she ran out of the door, Danny was locking up the spare apartment. It reminded Mindy of when she lived next to him while they were broken up. She scoffed at her past self for thinking _that_ was painful. This was a whole new level of hell she’d never expected.

They rode the subway together in silence. It was the same way all the way to work. She couldn’t help but notice that Danny looked tired. Even more tired than usual. The first time Danny spoke all morning was when he was greeted by their coworkers when they reached the office.

“Dr. C, you’re back!” Morgan cheered happily.

Danny smiled weakly at him, clearly wanting to make a quick escape for the office. No one would let him. They all kept bugging him about India and what it was like there. Mindy was able to duck into her office before anyone tried to wrangle her in a conversation.

She was working diligently at her desk (or as diligently as she could be given the circumstances) when Danny walked into her office. He didn’t shut the door behind him. That meant something to Mindy. He walked towards her desk but kept it between them. He plopped a set of keys down on the desk and backed further away, as if the act was self-explanatory. It was only when Mindy looked at him questioningly that Danny felt like he needed to explain.

“I don’t want you staying in some hotel or bumming on someone’s couch till you find a new place. The both of you deserve better.”

He was starting to turn away when Mindy asked, “Are these to the spare apartment? Because I –”

Danny shook his head. “It’s to the Brownstone. Things are further along than you’d think.” He looked like he was going to add more but Mindy could discern tears in his eyes which he tried to swallow before he nodded quickly and left.

**

That night after work, Mindy picked up her suitcase and headed to the Brownstone. She hoped it was truly as livable as Danny had indicated. Admittedly, she hadn’t been there many times. After Danny found out she was pregnant, he wouldn’t let her near the place. He kept saying she could see it when it wasn’t a hazard to her and the baby. She got to what she believed was the right place. Without it looking totally rundown, she wasn’t completely sure which was theirs. Hers.

Mindy didn’t know what to prepare herself for once she stepped inside. She surely was not prepared for what she saw. Danny had been basically making every call on the place. She was expecting the place to be a boring clone of his current place, but she was wrong. So wrong.

From the minute she walked in the door she was basically assaulted with color. Not in a tacky way, but in a beautiful way. It looked exactly like something Mindy would have picked. Beautiful, bright red walls greeted her in the entry way. The trim around the doorway was intricate and stunning. Mindy loved it and it was only the entry way. She strolled in further and found the kitchen. Again, bold colors adorned the walls. Everywhere she looked, she was awestruck. She could see herself in the bold color choices and Danny in the fine details of the house. It was like it was a metaphor for them.

She wandered through the place trying to take in everything. In a few rooms of the house she noticed some of her old furniture. Her couch was in one room, perched in front of a fireplace. Her old bed was in what she assumed was the master bedroom. Mindy continued down from that room and stopped in front of a door that read “Nursery.” She hesitated. She had an inkling that Danny had already made sure that room was basically finished too.

She fought her instincts to run away and instead pushed open the door. The walls were green. When she got close to them she noticed the outlines on the wall. She could seemingly make out jungle animals. It looked like a bunch of monkeys and birds that were waiting to be filled in. She didn’t really get why Danny chose a jungle theme, but it was so cute that she didn’t really care. Her heart about melted when she looked at the drawings above the cardboard box representing the crib. They were completely out of place but she still cried as she saw the incredibly adorable drawings of Brown Bear and Mr. Neck basically snuggled up together to watch over the crib.

As she walked back down toward the entry way where she left her things, it hit her. This place was them. She had expected Danny to make choices that came naturally to him. Instead, he’d clearly fought his instincts in order to make it apparent that Mindy would live there too. The house was a physical representation of them as a couple. It was Mindy’s bold choices and Danny’s attention to details. It was Mindy’s bright personality mixed with Danny’s reserved personality that somehow evened them both out.

She was almost back toward the stairs when she heard the knock. She had no clue who to expect when she answered the door. Ray happily greeted her when she opened the door for him.  

“Oh, hi, Mindy. I didn’t know anyone would be here. When I saw the lights on, I thought maybe I should knock.”

Mindy smiled tightly. “Hey Ray. What can I do for you?”

“I just left my toolbox here.” He walked in behind her. “So you’re finally checking the place out, huh?”

“Um, sort of.”

“It’s coming along really nicely. I don’t really know why Danny decided to move in this furniture prematurely though. It’s livable but it’s not really finished. There’s still a lot of work to be done. It sure does look good though. Can you believe this place used to be the dump that it was? And now it’s beautiful. It’s really something.”

Mindy listened to Ray rave about the work he did himself but all she could think about was the house as a metaphor for her and Danny. “There’s still a lot of work to be done.” It’s true, she and Danny had a lot of work to do if they were going to fix their relationship. “Can you believe this place used to be the dump that it was? And now it’s beautiful.” They had started out as enemies. He criticized everything she did. They basically hated each other. But slowly they became friends and then they were together. Granted there was a lot of stuff in the middle, but in the end, it turned into something beautiful. Even if it wasn’t finished. Was their house literally a metaphor for them?

Ray turned around and looked at her expectantly. She realized that she’d missed something he’d said. “I’m sorry, Ray, what did you say?”

“I was just asking if you’d seen the nursery. Danny was excited about it. I tried to talk him into baseball or dinosaurs since you’re having a boy but he kept saying he wanted something more “gender neutral” or something. Something about how maybe this baby wouldn’t be the only one. Anyway, did you like it?”

“Wait, he said that?” Mindy asked, completely blown away.

“About the baby? …Yes.”

Mindy left Ray to go find her phone. She needed to talk to Danny. She thought that she could make this decision by herself but she was wrong. She needed to hear his side of things. Maybe he hadn’t wanted to marry her, but by looking around what was supposed to be their home, she could tell he’d clearly wanted a future with her. He’d poured everything into this place. He bought it for _her_. He realized he didn’t want to be away from her and so he bought them a home. He even did so before he knew she was pregnant. When she was playing devil’s advocate, she could explain away a lot of the kind things he did by saying they were for the baby. But this house, this was for them. For her.

Sure Mindy still wanted to get married. But what she wanted more than that was commitment. She didn’t want to worry or wait for the other shoe to drop. If she’d felt secure in their relationship, she’d have told her parents about Danny a long time ago. She’d kept worrying he’d flake again. But something about looking at this house and all the thought and love he’d poured into it, showed her that he wasn’t going to flake. He was in it and not just for the baby.

She’d been so distracted by her own news she needed to share with Danny that she’d almost missed what he said to her. He’d realized how important it was for them to be together. That was why he bought the rundown house in the first place. It was for them to be together. He bought her the house she’d always wanted. He’d said it was rough around the edges but so was he when she got her hands on him. And he wasn’t finished yet.

She put her phone to her ear. He sounded concerned when he answered the phone. “Danny, can you meet me at the Brownstone?”

“Yeah. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. I just need to talk to you.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Mindy didn’t have to wait long for Danny to show up. He ran in looking anxious. She was sitting on her couch in front of the fireplace. He cautiously approached the other end of it. She nodded her head to tell him he was free to sit. They sat in silence for a bit until Mindy spoke first.

“I’m just sitting here thinking of how I’d decorate this place.”

“Min…”

She ignored him and continued. She pointed to the wall above the fireplace. “When I was a kid, I always wanted one of those super fancy portraits above the fireplace. I mean then I wanted it to be of me. But that wouldn’t make much sense now. A family portrait makes more sense. Wouldn’t want the baby to feel left out.”

“Mindy…”

“Why didn’t you tell me this place was so far along?”

“I don’t know. Because you were busy with your clinic and we had the baby to worry about and I-I don’t know. A lot of it came along recently.”

Mindy nodded in reply. “Why did you give me the keys to it?”

“I told you. I don’t want you staying at some hotel or – ”

“Yeah, but why give me the keys to _here_? You could have given me the keys to the spare apartment.”

Danny took a deep breath and waited before responding. “Because it’s for you. It always was.”

“I thought it was for _us_.”

Danny looked pained. “I mean it was, but if there’s no us then it should be yours.”

 Mindy paused. “You should know that when I was packing, I wasn’t _leaving_ leaving. I needed some space to make some pretty big decisions.”

“And?”

“And honestly I thought it would take me a while to make those decisions. I wanted to make the right decision for the baby and for me. I didn’t want to always be the person who gives in. I wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into when I settled on that decision.”

Danny closed his eyes like he was preparing himself for the worst. “And?”

Mindy scooted closer to him on the couch. She placed her hand on his. His head shot up and he opened his eyes to look at her. Beneath all the pain, she could swear she saw hope in his eyes.

“And we’re like this house. It looks beautiful and ready to live in. But if you look closer, there are still a lot of things that need work. You wouldn’t look at this place and just abandon it now. Not when it has so much promise.” She paused to let it sink in.

“We have a lot of work ahead of us. You and me. We want some of the same things and not some of the same things. But we can’t just give up now. I don’t want to live here alone. You bought this house for _us_. I’m not saying it’s not going to be hard, especially with the baby coming. But what I am saying, is that I want to get through the hard parts because I think that it’ll be great on the other side. And when you love someone the way that I love you, you work through the hard parts. So what do you say?”

Danny looked shell shocked. He scooted slightly closer to her on the couch. He still looked hesitant like if he moved too fast she’d change her mind. “So you aren’t leaving?” She shook her head. Danny breathed a sigh of relief with the beginnings of a smile gracing his face. He closed the space between them and wrapped her into his arms. He kissed the top of her head.

She closed her arms around him and held him as tightly as he was holding her. “Danny, all I really want from you is a commitment. I used to think that it was marriage or nothing. But there are other ways of commitment. And honestly, this house, and everything you did for us, for our future,” she grabbed his hand and placed it on her protruding belly, “for our family’s future, it showed me that marriage isn’t the only way to show you’re in it.”

Danny gently rubbed his hand on Mindy’s belly before bringing it up to cup her face. “I _do_ love you. You know that right?”

Mindy smiled at him. “I do. And I do too.” Danny smiled back at her and rested his forehead against hers. He leaned in slowly and kissed her lingeringly.

Mindy pulled back first. “Hey, how’d you get my furniture in here?”

Danny looked at her sheepishly. “I may have offered to buy Adrian some new stuff for your apartment if he’d help me move your stuff over here yesterday. That’s why there’s so little of it. We couldn’t move much.” Mindy nodded skeptically. Danny laughed a little and shrugged. “I wanted there to be something here for you. To make it like home.” Mindy looked at Danny disbelievingly. She leaned in and kissed him quickly.

“So you like the place?” Danny asked rather excitedly. Mindy laughed and nodded.

Danny grabbed her hand to pull her up off the couch. He started giving her his own personal tour. He narrated his thought process behind his choices and what each room was for. She was amused by his passion. As he pointed out all the rooms they still had to work on and all the different things still to be fixed, she recognized that the place was indeed still a work in progress.

But then again, so were they.  

**Author's Note:**

> It ended up a bit (or a lot) longer than I expected. But what did you think?   
> With the great sets they've had so far, I can't wait to see what the brownstone actually looks like.   
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> You can always find me here: http://allmylovesatonce.tumblr.com/


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